Shirt.Woot

geekfactor12 wrote:As someone who's been around since Shirt.Woot launched, I can attest that people were making last minute buys long before Ramy showed up. It's been a known thing pretty much since the Reckoning started. You can dislike how it works, but to blame Ramy for that isn't very accurate. Most artists want to see their designs sell for as long as possible (for the money, yeah, but also because they love the pieces they've created), and they'd act to save those works if they could regardless of whose designs they're up against.

woot practically encourages it with that email they send before you get reckoned. They just want to sell shirts, so of course they don't care who buys them. For the sake of those who haven't received one of these fine emails I have posted the contents of mine below.

Uh-oh, Schrobblehead. Shirt.Woot here. We don’t want to alarm you, but…

Your shirt, Modern Elephants, is currently sitting at #24 on our Reckoning chart (http://shirt.woot.com/blog/?cat=reckoning). That means it’s in danger of being Reckoned out of print this coming Monday.

Is there anything you can do? Yes, dammit. Yes. If enough people buy your shirt to lift it into our Top 20, it will survive for at least another week. Now’s the time to call in favors from everybody you know. Being in danger of Reckoning sure shows you who your real friends are.

You can check the Reckoning chart (http://shirt.woot.com/blog/?cat=reckoning) again on Monday afternoon to learn the final fate of your shirt.

Best of luck in surviving the cruel Day of Reckoning. And remember, ‘tis better to have Shirt.Wooted and lost than never to have Shirt.Wooted at all.

Hang in there, kitten

midgerock wrote:Dear wooters,
I am not posting this for attention as some may feel. I am not posting this because I am being threatened or held at gun point. I am however deeply and regretfully sorry for posting a design slandering another artist. I was under misinformation regarding this artist. I was fueled with anger for losing because I was under the mindset this artist was a cheater and was playing the system to bolster votes and cheat the derby. I was wrong. So this is my way to publically apologize for being a jerk and an ass. I am truly sorry. You don't deserve the hate brought towards you and I just added to it with my design and comments. I however want to congratulate you on placing 2nd this last week. That's what I should have done instead of posting the design.

With all sincerity,
midgerock

I don't think you need to apologize to a robot.

megsck wrote:its because a lot of people think that their opinion is the majority...that happens a lot on this site...but thats only my opinion, which is obviously a minority =P

@ Spirit & Megsck
One of the reasons could be that, even his most inferior design prints and stays in reckoning for 3 years. Well, you gotta understand we are on the same side. Most of the people who talk about this are not artists. We do not bring this topic here because we lost several hours on a design just to see it sink below top 20. This really is not our fight (non artists type), but it sounds like all artist folks are perfectly fine and supporting him. if you ask me, i just want to own a megsck derby design, so you better start doing whatever he's doing :P

chennai8 wrote:@ Spirit & Megsck
This really is not our fight (non artists type), but it sounds like all artist folks are perfectly fine and supporting him. if you ask me, i just want to own a megsck derby design, so you better start doing whatever he's doing :P

I'm more of a Meg fan than a Ramy fan too (sorry Ramy, nothing personal!). ;-)

I actually just looked and during the time I've been here, a little over a year, Ramy has had 21 designs that have failed, and thirteen that have printed. And a bunch more that were rejected or withdrawn. It's a heck of a record but it's not quite a baseball player on steroids kinda deal.

Astoundingly that's only three more prints than me. (although I've had a lot more failures!)

I'm not coming at this as a flag waving, badge owning, certified Ramy supporter - I just think it's better for everyone if we can take a step back from the rumors, trust Woot a little more and try to be objective.

chennai8 wrote:@ Spirit & Megsck
One of the reasons could be that, even his most inferior design prints and stays in reckoning for 3 years. Well, you gotta understand we are on the same side. Most of the people who talk about this are not artists. We do not bring this topic here because we lost several hours on a design just to see it sink below top 20. This really is not our fight (non artists type), but it sounds like all artist folks are perfectly fine and supporting him. if you ask me, i just want to own a megsck derby design, so you better start doing whatever he's doing :P

if she does what he's doing she wouldn't be doing that which makes her megsck.

chennai8 wrote:@ Spirit & Megsck
One of the reasons could be that, even his most inferior design prints and stays in reckoning for 3 years. Well, you gotta understand we are on the same side. Most of the people who talk about this are not artists. We do not bring this topic here because we lost several hours on a design just to see it sink below top 20. This really is not our fight (non artists type), but it sounds like all artist folks are perfectly fine and supporting him. if you ask me, i just want to own a megsck derby design, so you better start doing whatever he's doing :P

haha, well i am trying, but im a horrible self promoter, i have a hetic day job, and i hate twitter, so i believe i am screwed. )

i will however keep submitting in derbies, because i love drawing, and i love having something new to draw every week, and that and people like you, as well as other artists like spirit, more than the printing, is why i keep coming back here.

Spiritgreen wrote:I'm not coming at this as a flag waving, badge owning, certified Ramy supporter - I just think it's better for everyone if we can take a step back from the rumors, trust Woot a little more and try to be more objective about it all.

trust no one.



i draw because i like to draw.

i draw to the derby theme because it helps give me focus. i'm far from being an everyday creative artist type, so i need that crutch.

i enter the drawings into the derby because after i've "finished" (quotes because it's more like the drawing is finished with me rather than the other way around) drawing, it's not that much more effort to slap it on a template and enter it. as i have shown, sometimes a nobody can get lucky and get printed. why not enter?

whether there is cheating or not, i'd prolly still do these same things every week (well, mabe every other week). but really, there are so few written rules, i'm not even sure what could be considered cheating (i.e., rulebreaking).

Spiritgreen wrote:
Ramy makes popular shirts. He's going to get a lot of votes in a popularity contest.

I saw a guy in a restaurant wearing his snow bunny shirt a couple months back. Separately, a girl at another restaurant wearing his seasons changing shirt. I have some friends who I introduced to Shirt.Woot with my own entries, but they vote for and buy all kinds of stuff. They often buy Ramy shirts because of the simplicity of the joke or image. They're not even 'otaku', just guys, girls, moms, etc.

I think the shirts sell (in droves) because they appeal to regular people who find them cute or pretty. That's the thing about Shirt.Woot that is different from a lot of other tee sites. A good portion of the audience here is not other artists or fans of artists but average people. This doesnt mean that your average Joe can't or doesn't like art, but it does mean it's more likely they'll opt for something simple, funny, or cute.

Mavyn wrote:I suspect that's more from the myopia of a forum posting regular. People seem to think that most of the people who vote also comment, and since very few commentators (other than those who defend and get in the 'iz gud art cuz i like it' arguments) rave his work, people presume 'real' members aren't voting.

Simple truth from most of the wooters I know...they don't post in the forums. They don't read the comments. They just vote and go on their merry way.

I'll make sort of a general response since you've made several points that bear repeating. Calling me myopic is projection at best. I know just as well if not better than most that the voting community is a tiny proportion of the buying community. They may not even be overlapping. What you are doing is assuming that the buying community is the voting community and here's how.

What you are saying is that because people buy certain shirts that means they support what is winning the derbies. Far from it actually and it's been shown multiple times that votes rarely equate to sales. Some designs with a ton of votes sell very poorly. Some shirts that couldn't win their derby or their double take have sold quite well as EC's.

The bottom line is that probably 90% or more of the buying community probably has never seen a single shirt that didn't go to print. You have no idea what they might like and the more niche the prints become the more people who want something else don't check back. It's shocking to me how massively even the voting community has turned over since ramy showed up I can't even begin to fathom what that has done to the consuming crowd.

To say that sales means the buyers is a validation of the derby results is patently false because you have no idea what those people would vote for if they actually voted.

Secondly, I've never said that ramy is cheating. Far from it. I hardly think he's dumb enough personally put himself in jeopardy like that. That doesn't mean there isn't cheating going on and he's a polarizing enough figure that it's as likely as anything that people are cheating for him.

How many posts have you read that stated, "I vote for every ramy shirt see to spite everyone." I've seen, "I vote for every ramy shirt with every single one of my alt accounts as well," more than once.

You've hinged so much on this, "everyone should stop talking unless they have proof." Take your own advice. Prove ramy isn't cheating. Prove no one is cheating. Show me the evidence. You can't. All you can do is speculate, but for some reason you think your right to speculate is somehow more legitimate than someone who doesn't agree with you. It's all a farce.

I'll go with facts for you. Seki stole a design. Seki is now banned and we were told by the aritst who owned the rights they are suing seki and woot. Another fact is this wasn't the first time her designs matched exactly a preexisting precursor. There was just no way to link the two. Before that seki was banned from deviantart for using fake accounts (hundreds) to support her designs.

There were many people who saw it coming. Many people who warned and there are still people who try to ignore it even after the fact. There are tons of posts stating, "I don't care if she stole this I want to buy it."

The voting community here has repeated shown they have no scruples so why should we expect them to? Why should anyone have expected seki to have cleaned up magically now that she was at woot? It always was and is Jatravartid. And ramy has been in partner with her doing all of these things from the beginning so why should I expect him to magically have a conscience?

The bottom line is that there exists the possibility for cheating. Anyone remember the mysterious fog manipulation from a while back before they took fogged entries out of the hotness? Before you could see strange voting patterns in fogged designs. On several occasions at around 8am there were designs with less than 50 votes getting about 30 votes in a matter of minutes all at once sweeping everything else out of the fog. We all speculated that it was being done so that people could manipulate the fog without being seen. Woot stated that they at least were concerned if not that it was being done.

There is a massive history of cheating in the derby and as far as I'm concerned those who have a lot to gain and those who have a lot to spend on it and who have repeatedly shown they are willing to act outside the rules and manipulate things in unscrupulous ways are suspect. You can continue to believe that everything is peachy keen if you want, but it's naive at best.

My theory to cheat (I'm just going to explain how I think it could be done) is with the visa gift cards. They work as credit cards and could have any name put to them when purchasing. when woot has something super cheat (maybe a kids ? shirt for $3.33) buy a LOT of visa gift cards for $5.00 a piece and use each one to buy a shirt and create a new account. to have it be untraceable you pick some name in the phone book and have it sent there. (person will be like what the heck, but oh well) then you have a ton of votes. with new names and new billing addresses. with $3,330 bucks you can own shirt.woot.

Woot would need to check IP address of voters. I would love to see an official woot staff member tell us they check to see how many votes come from the same IP.

Maybe if all of the artists fans of artists get together and buy 5 accounts each and then vote for EVERYONE except you know who, maybe it will be a little more fair ;)

Eh, to be honest I find the argument that because Seki cheated Ramy does as well to be pretty slim. There was evidence all over the place of Seki doing less-than-ethical things, but I've yet to see clear evidence of any single wrongdoing by Ramy.

Innocent until proven guilty. It's kind of the basis for this society thing we have going on

Incidentally, for non-artists who are confused why so many derby artists are commenting in Ramy-neutral ways, consider this: if you don't have to have evidence to tar someone as a cheater, what is to stop anyone from doing the same thing to any other artist competing? It's no mystery why artists want a little more accountability than that. Our reputations are riding on this in a way that a non-competing commenter's reputation may not be.

panderb wrote:Woot would need to check IP address of voters. I would love to see an official woot staff member tell us they check to see how many votes come from the same IP.

i have no basis for my imagination, but the IP records are exactly what i imagined they checked when they reassured midgerock about cheating.

no1 wrote:i have no basis for my imagination, but the IP records are exactly what i imagined they checked when they reassured midgerock about cheating.

If woot says so, I'll believe it. I want woot to explain HOW they have deemed him to be not cheating. I don't trust woot to be honest or have any integrity because of how terrible the rejectionator is. Either they don't really care about the derby or they are crazy lazy!

Saying "we've looked into it" is not enough. I want some facts not their word on it!

panderb wrote:If woot says so, I'll believe it. I want woot to explain HOW they have deemed him to be not cheating. I don't trust woot to be honest or have any integrity because of how terrible the rejectionator is. Either they don't really care about the derby or they are crazy lazy!

Saying "we've looked into it" is not enough. I want some facts not their word on it!

uh, isn't anything they say going to be "their word"? if you trust nothing they say, why would you trust any evidence they present?

no1 wrote:uh, isn't anything they say going to be "their word"? if you trust nothing they say, why would you trust any evidence they present?

i dont think making sense is going to help you in this arguement =P

megsck wrote:i dont think making sense is going to help you in this arguement =P

I don't trust the "We looked into it". If they said "We checked all the IP addresses and found only 7 duplicates. And no credit gift card made accounts" I would be more likely to say OK!

geekfactor12 wrote:Incidentally, for non-artists who are confused why so many derby artists are commenting in Ramy-neutral ways, consider this: if you don't have to have evidence to tar someone as a cheater, what is to stop anyone from doing the same thing to any other artist competing? It's no mystery why artists want a little more accountability than that. Our reputations are riding on this in a way that a non-competing commenter's reputation may not be.

I'm not sure anyone's confused. I certainly am not. From what I have seen, the ramy neutral/positive artists are either too new to take a side or doing their best to pander the same way. The status quo is offend ramy put yourself in jeopardy of a severe blowback. There's no downside to supporting ramy other than integrity. Per that, I've not seen a single artist I respect defend him. I'd say that's a good deal more telling.

The way to win Derbies is simple. It's not usually the best art. It is usually the most John Q Public friendly. A quick joke, cute visual, and pop cult reference will do it. Heck, I think I'm wearing one of those right now - Unstealthiest Ninja. Adorable.
With that in mind why is it so dang hard to see how the guy who DOES that style well, wins and sells shirts? I just don't get the vitriolic attitude and accusations.

As a buyer, not artist, it comes off as sour grapes and is turning me in particular off of the derby in general. The best way to get people to buy your product isn't to trash talk your competitor, it is to showcase your product. Perhaps part of RamyB's success is kick-butt self promotion. Seems like marketing is a major part of print/reckoning survival.

It is telling that a lot of the conspiracy theorist comments were done from sock puppet accounts. Way to stand up for your perceived injustice, anonymous angry account.

If you don't believe Woot is being honest about checking into the cheating question, why would you want to do business with them? I wouldn't want to work with an organization I thought was dishonest. If you do while waving a flag of revolution - you're a hypocrite. You would take their cash, but call them liars? Irony... I <3 it.

panderb wrote:I don't trust the "We looked into it". If they said "We checked all the IP addresses and found only 7 duplicates. And no credit gift card made accounts" I would be more likely to say OK!

what i dont understand is why you are singling out one specific person that is cheating, there are other artists who have printed just as much if not more and as often...are they cheating too? you have no reason to pick on this one artist other than your personal bias.

well i think you are a bank robber...i have no proof...but you seem sneaky to me. therefore everything you say from now on doesnt matter, because ive deemed you a bank robber and you are no longer credible! *hides her purse*

megsck wrote:what i dont understand is why you are singling out one specific person that is cheating, there are other artists who have printed just as much if not more and as often...are they cheating too? you have no reason to pick on this one artist other than your personal bias.

well i think you are a bank robber...i have no proof...but you seem sneaky to me. therefore everything you say from now on doesnt matter, because ive deemed you a bank robber and you are no longer credible! *hides her purse*

A cookie. You deserve one. Mostly because I pictured a bunny and a penguin having this argument...

The Jump-start Theory:
Winning @ Woot!

1.Let say I have 10 friends and each makes one purchase from Woot. Then I have 10 votes from friends.

2.Let say I have 10 friends and they each make 2 purchases with separate accounts from Woot. Then I have 20 votes from friends.

3.Now increase the number of friends to 50 who make 2 purchases with separate accounts from Woot. Now I have 100 votes for my design.

4.) Now if I sub and then coordinate these voters to vote as soon as I sub, my design gets pushed into the fog immediately. As a result of my design being in the fog the normal voter comes along and they normally vote for what has a chance of winning (don't want to throw away a vote) and in turn vote for my design because from past votes my designs seem to win and is popular and I want to vote for what's popular.

In theory this jump-start voting works to get my design in the voters eyes and keeps it there for the other voters to vote on.

What I have reviewed is not illegal in the eyes of Woot.

This is acceptable, since I don’t have multiple alt accounts being used for voting.

sonofsevenless wrote:There's no downside to supporting ramy other than integrity.

Except of course for this:

sonofsevenless wrote: I've not seen a single artist I respect defend him. I'd say that's a good deal more telling.

So, anyone who wants evidence of wrongdoing isn't worthy of respect and has no integrity? I hope I'm interpreting that wrong. But I've seen similar sentiments in the past, and it definitely creates an environment where it's difficult to take a stand on an issue that involves a widely-hated artist. It's a pretty big downside.

To me, there's a big difference between not liking Ramy's art (I'd guess that virtually every person posting in this thread is in that camp, fwiw) and thinking that he must be cheating. For whatever reason, no one can provide clear evidence of any cheating. So it only makes sense to assume that... in absence of other evidence... no cheating is occurring. Doesn't mean you have to like his art. But for many it means that there's no sense in making an accusation until you've got something concrete to back it up.

thumperchick wrote:A cookie. You deserve one. Mostly because I pictured a bunny and a penguin having this argument...

that shirt would print immediately.

outsideobserver wrote:The Jump-start Theory:
Winning @ Woot!

1.Let say I have 10 friends and each makes one purchase from Woot. Then I have 10 votes from friends.

2.Let say I have 10 friends and they each make 2 purchases with separate accounts from Woot. Then I have 20 votes from friends.

3.Now increase the number of friends to 50 who make 2 purchases with separate accounts from Woot. Now I have 100 votes for my design.

4.) Now if I sub and then coordinate these voters to vote as soon as I sub, my design gets pushed into the fog immediately. As a result of my design being in the fog the normal voter comes along and they normally vote for what has a chance of winning (don't want to throw away a vote) and in turn vote for my design because from past votes my designs seem to win and is popular and I want to vote for what's popular.

In theory this jump-start voting works to get my design in the voters eyes and keeps it there for the other voters to vote on.

What I have reviewed is not illegal in the eyes of Woot.

This is acceptable, since I don’t have multiple alt accounts being used for voting.

oh, so all i need is 50 corrupt friends sitting around waiting to do anything i tell them to? damn...this means i have to meet new people...

megsck wrote:what i dont understand is why you are singling out one specific person that is cheating, there are other artists who have printed just as much if not more and as often...are they cheating too? you have no reason to pick on this one artist other than your personal bias.

well i think you are a bank robber...i have no proof...but you seem sneaky to me. therefore everything you say from now on doesn't matter, because I've deemed you a bank robber and you are no longer credible! *hides her purse*

who prints as often and as much?

with his past with deviantart and seki (his freakin girlfriend) its obvious he isn't going to care to be honest all the time. Now he gets money for having lots of vote... crazy! He's here with a huge following!

If I had robbed a candy store got caught and kicked to your town, you could assume I am a robber or could get to robbing banks before too long.

Personally the whole no evidence = no wrong doing is bogus. If they found a loop hole no will find it till they are looking for it. also the whole "God" example, because there is no physical evidence that proves there is no God?

If its purely a design thing then in the robot saves the world derby didn't the other 1000 identical looking robots do as good?

Also "looking into it" could be:

Woot: Hey ramy, are you cheating?
Ramy: nope
Woot: k

panderb wrote:who prints as often and as much?

According to Shirt.What, patrickspens and tgentry have both printed more than Ramy. Patrick even did it with a higher print percentage.

Maybe Ramy is cheating since 2 of his designs ended up on the less than 1000 sold list. No, wait... Drakxxx has 7 on there (out of 17 prints total), BootsBoots has 2, and so does Jewelwing. So it happens to everyone who prints enough, regardless of quality.

The only way Ramy's stats stand out is in total votes- which, frankly, is exactly the result you'd expect to see for someone with a couple of shirts that have been doing extraordinarily well on the Reckoning list.

panderb wrote:with his past with deviantart and seki (his freakin girlfriend) its obvious he isn't going to care to be honest all the time. Now he gets money for having lots of vote... crazy! He's here with a huge following!

If I had robbed a candy store got caught and kicked to your town, you could assume I am a robber or could get to robbing banks before too long.

The problem is that you're conflating Seki's actions with Ramy's. No one will disagree that Seki had a history of fake accounts on other sites, questionable convention behavior, and a stolen design. But Seki did those things, not Ramy. He may just have poor choice in associates.

panderb wrote:Personally the whole no evidence = no wrong doing is bogus. If they found a loop hole no will find it till they are looking for it. also the whole "God" example, because there is no physical evidence that proves there is no God?

This is probably the wrong argument to use with an atheist ;)

That said, religion is a matter of faith. Justice is not. Justice demands facts. If you told me you were speaking to Thor in your dreams, I'd be happy to leave you to it. But if you told me DreamThor told you that your neighbors were murderers, I'd tell you to 1) let the police know, and 2) consider that maybe a little more evidence than DreamThor is required before they prosecute.

panderb wrote:If its purely a design thing then in the robot saves the world derby didn't the other 1000 identical looking robots do as good?

This is silly. Obviously you don't like Ramy's designs, but they're not identical to what anyone else is creating. Some would say they're worse, others would say they're better. More voters liked Ramy's robot than liked the other designs last week. It happens. It's far from the worst result we've seen in a derby.

panderb wrote:Also "looking into it" could be:

Woot: Hey ramy, are you cheating?
Ramy: nope
Woot: k

Yeah, it isn't. Woot has said before, both publicly and privately, that they look into the voting every week. They have a system and check it for issues including but not limited to IP addresses. For obvious reasons (ie, preventing potential cheaters from knowing what to work around) they don't give details of what specifically is looked at. This is a good thing.

geekfactor12 wrote:Yeah, it isn't. Woot has said before, both publicly and privately, that they look into the voting every week. They have a system and check it for issues including but not limited to IP addresses. For obvious reasons (ie, preventing potential cheaters from knowing what to work around) they don't give details of what specifically is looked at. This is a good thing.

You have some good points. I guess it is possible that Ramy is just doing that well. I guess I had more faith in humanity to not pick the same exact thing over and over and over than I did in Ramy himself. Ramy, if you read this I am sorry. Humanity, if you read this, you are pathetic!

geekfactor12 wrote:It's far from the worst result we've seen in a derby.

was any1 else, like... holding their breath and crossing their fingers when they clicked the link?

no1 wrote:was any1 else, like... holding their breath and crossing their fingers when they clicked the link?

Hahaha, the fun part is there are probably dozens I could have linked instead. I just went for entries that did well in my two least favorite derbies ;) Probably everyone would have a different design in mind, most for very good reasons.

bluchez wrote:If your numbers are accurate, it more likely supports that cheating is not happening. We know woot looks into these things, and noone would risk that losing that kind of money regardless of ethics.

Losing? Keep in mind that every derby win a hypothetical cheater gets would go to SOMEONE. So woot doesn't lose there, someone's gettin them a grand. For a shirt to stay in the reckoning, it has to sell so many shirts a week. Sometimes that's 100, sometimes 150. It's been way too long since I gave a flying f to even keep track. And so this artist gets 2 bucks a sale from woot. After woot gets 15. Now, you don't *really* think woot sells shirts at a loss on a regular day, right? So woot makes money on those shirts too. And it's in their interest to let someone who might game the system a bit (but ultimately sell more) game it, because more sales=more woot bucks.

I'm not saying woot does this. I'm not saying ANY artist at woot does this. I'm just saying it wouldn't monetarily hurt woot to do this, and to them it doesn't matter who ultimately wins. If that makes sense.

Now...there's no doubt that last minute purchases have been made to certain tees to keep them on the Reckoning. However, there isn't anything dishonest about that

I think MJ said this. I'm being lazy. Oops.

ANyway, in response to this - there's a difference between showing up at 1150 whatevertime woot is in and buying 3 (or getting friends/family to) and initiating purchases, but only finishing those needed to boost the sales. I think people would agree that this behavior is gaming woot's system, and while some might not consider it outright cheating, it's dishonest and I (and I imagine others as well) find it extremely unethical. IF anyone is doing it. Again, I will not accuse anyone of doing so.

oh, so all i need is 50 corrupt friends sitting around waiting to do anything i tell them to? damn...this means i have to meet new people...

Megsck, in response to what you said - many popular artists have followings outside woot (who may or may not also participate here. I've certainly seen "unpopular on the forum" artists have rabid defenders, and other times seen popular artists go undefended, so both seem to occur. But I digress). It's quite easy to post a link to a design and say "here's mah shirt, go vote" - no one needs to know them, per se. There was a recent incident on xbox live arcade sales where the fans of some game not only upvoted (in star ratings, to imply higher or lower quality games) their game of choice, but also downvoted any nearby competitors. The publishers/programmers of the game didn't encourage this. THe fans did this on their own.

What I'm getting at is, rabid fanbases exist on the internet. Any artist could encourage this sort of behavior. By the same token, such behavior could occur independent of the artist. I have two woot accounts (I had maxed my color rating on this one before they changed and started a second to max that. Pointless, but eh). With the amount of woots I have, I could easily have more. And that's me not trying. With someone who was making an effort, someone who was a dedicated fan, determined to keep their favorite artist rolling in wins and non-reckoned shirts, it would be simple to make an account a week, or even month.

Again, I'm not saying anyone here did it, just responding to your skepticism.

Also, Travis was here long before Ramy, wasn't he? I'm not gonna go too deep into complaints about specific artists or why i think the numbers are the way they are (although let's be fair, 2 prints isn't a significant margin). As for percentage, tgentry has half the percentage of prints that patrick does (close enough) and ramy isn't really that far behind. There are other factors too, but like I said, don't really care about specific artists (well, it's more i'm too damn tired to deal with real numbers and stats)

Teal deer version - cheating is possible. Gaming the system is possible. Both suck, and either or both could account for certain patterns seen on woot. But no one can prove that either behavior happens, just point out that these behaviors fit situations seen here well.

(man my short version of this is long. Ok post over)

Despite evidence that shirt.woot will continue to exist in it's current form with the same voting trends and shirts holding out in the reckoning I will continue to nurse my own idealogical idea of how it should work. In the perfect shirt.woot creativity and hard work are rewarded, long haul artists who haven't had a print will get their turn, suspicion and discontent evaporate and chocolate fountains pump out gold coins made of real gold for all the good children.
In reality,I still add my one vote to my own design and those that to me appear to be well designed and make a good shirt. I tell my family and friends when something new goes up, which adds up to a couple more votes and each week do it over again dreaming of chocolate fountains.

bluchez wrote:If your numbers are accurate, it more likely supports that cheating is not happening. We know woot looks into these things, and noone would risk that losing that kind of money regardless of ethics.

Darquis wrote:Losing?...

Replace noone with no artist in my post. I was not referring to woot's income, but the artist's income. The artist making 6 figures would be risking a great deal of income by cheating.

thumperchick wrote:

It is telling that a lot of the conspiracy theorist comments were done from sock puppet accounts. Way to stand up for your perceived injustice, anonymous angry account.

this

tgentry wrote:As I said in the other thread, when I talked with Midgerock it was simply a matter of one artist telling another out of respect that they were barking up the wrong tree. [Hold on to your hat here] I like having talented new faces around here and want them to stay and succeed. But to be absolutely clear: there was no secret exchange of information, no unraveling of the system, no "checking out" of one artist on behalf of another.

Our systems and policies look at ALL artists and users equally and we will not and do not single out an artist to be "checked out", especially not based off of what goes on in these forums. I'm satisfied with the policies and checks and balances we have in place here and how they relate to the derby as a whole. If you're expecting some kind of detailed explanation of those, you'll be disappointed.

As I suggested to Midge, the best thing an artist can do for themselves is to focus on their art and put their time and efforts into that. In fact I'm going to go do that right now. Be nice to each other, huh?

Ah yes the good old trust us we know what we are doing line. While woot can do whatever they want it is usually a good idea to look into peoples complaints about other users rather than state "our checks are perfect". If you want people to believe that a certain user is not cheating after being accused of it multiple times it would be best to actually look into it a little deeper. Then when you come back to tell everyone that no they are not cheating you can actually state that you investigated it.

Imagine if all companies took Woots stance and refused to investigate peoples complaints. Corruption would run rampant.

I want to thank Midge for clarifying his point further when some of us had questions about it. I respect your stance, Midge, but as for those who say we should all take woot's word for it . . . why should we?

From things as varied to the last-minute reckoning irregularities (artulo's coconut shirt got reckoned unfairly at the stroke of midnight, anyone remember that?) to the whole broccoli incident, to basically anything involving seki, woot hasn't given me the warm and fuzzies I'd want from someone whose word I'm supposed to accept unconditionally. I want to trust, but you guys have made it tough. Some forum regulars might have noticed that my postings have been way down from where they used to be--I've lost faith in the site and my (lack of) presence is a reflection of that.

Ultimately, those who like ramy (and/or his designs) will view him favorably. Those who dislike what he's done to this site will take the opposing view. Many people I respect (SpiritGreen, you being a notable one: you got CHOPS!) are on the opposite side. I'm fine with that. I don't feel like I have to insult people who feel differently than I do, but I will let the other side know that those of us who feel there is something rotten in Denmark are not just rage-blinded haters. There's a pattern of half-disclosure and silence here that has made me wary of accepting the company line. If you accept it, that's fine and it's your right, but I think it's unreasonable to say that those of us who aren't buying it are a pack of zealots.

tl;dr lololololol

killmak wrote:Ah yes the good old trust us we know what we are doing line. While woot can do whatever they want it is usually a good idea to look into peoples complaints about other users rather than state "our checks are perfect". If you want people to believe that a certain user is not cheating after being accused of it multiple times it would be best to actually look into it a little deeper. Then when you come back to tell everyone that no they are not cheating you can actually state that you investigated it.

Imagine if all companies took Woots stance and refused to investigate peoples complaints. Corruption would run rampant.

Hi killmak
It looks like you joined woot around the same time I did. From following the derbies and forums here in that time, I picked up pretty quickly that Travis (tgentry) was someone who got prints based on his consistent skills, creative approach and integrity. He worked hard to achieve what he did as an artist and constantly supported and encouraged best practice in the design community here. Now he works for woot I don't think he is a different person and think his advice is sound and carries a lot of weight for me. He has opened up greater communication with woot as a company and those who are their clients. Travis continues to focus on initiatives which foster creativity and community. He's just asking for those who value those things to do the same.

What's this "one vote" business?

outsideobserver wrote:The Jump-start Theory:
Winning @ Woot!

1.Let say I have 10 friends and each makes one purchase from Woot. Then I have 10 votes from friends.

2.Let say I have 10 friends and they each make 2 purchases with separate accounts from Woot. Then I have 20 votes from friends.

3.Now increase the number of friends to 50 who make 2 purchases with separate accounts from Woot. Now I have 100 votes for my design.

4.) Now if I sub and then coordinate these voters to vote as soon as I sub, my design gets pushed into the fog immediately. As a result of my design being in the fog the normal voter comes along and they normally vote for what has a chance of winning (don't want to throw away a vote) and in turn vote for my design because from past votes my designs seem to win and is popular and I want to vote for what's popular.

In theory this jump-start voting works to get my design in the voters eyes and keeps it there for the other voters to vote on.

What I have reviewed is not illegal in the eyes of Woot.

This is acceptable, since I don’t have multiple alt accounts being used for voting.

This "theory" works in all directions. Everyone submits with the hopes of an early rise, whether that is by luck or promotion, etc.

For all of the people I've "brought with me" to Woot, many of them vote for other designs even if I too am competing. :P One of my friends even flat out won't vote for me if she doesnt like what I've offered . (she's not shy about telling me this either <3)

PixelPants wrote:Despite evidence that shirt.woot will continue to exist in it's current form with the same voting trends and shirts holding out in the reckoning I will continue to nurse my own idealogical idea of how it should work. In the perfect shirt.woot creativity and hard work are rewarded, long haul artists who haven't had a print will get their turn, suspicion and discontent evaporate and chocolate fountains pump out gold coins made of real gold for all the good children.
In reality,I still add my one vote to my own design and those that to me appear to be well designed and make a good shirt. I tell my family and friends when something new goes up, which adds up to a couple more votes and each week do it over again dreaming of chocolate fountains.

Mer, I still keep holding out for unicorns that fart DIAMONDS. Think of the morning commute, all of us workers riding our diamond-farting unicorns on the way to the 9-5. Amazing.

Chocolate fountains would also be cool tho .

I should really go to bed...